


A Straight Line Down Through the Heart

by SoloMoon



Series: Eleutherophobia [12]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Aftermath of yeerk infestation, Cassie POV, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Romance, mentions of gore, mentions of victim blaming, well-intentioned but shitty parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 01:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13602936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoloMoon/pseuds/SoloMoon
Summary: Cassie is a lot of things: a former child soldier, a current leader in Resident Alien Affairs, the youngest-ever Special Assistant to the President.  An Animorph.  An advocate.  A one-woman army.  Sometimes, however, she just wants to be a teenage girl, the kind who takes a break from changing the world to go for dinner at her boyfriend's house.  This is one of those times.(Cassie's point of view on the post-war Berenson family.)





	A Straight Line Down Through the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This story is the product of several requests on [ my tumblr](http://thejakeformerlyknownasprince.tumblr.com/)— one for Jake to bring Cassie home with him, one for a Tom/Bonnie and Jake/Cassie double date, a few for more Jake/Cassie, and several for an outsider’s point of view either on Tom himself or on the ex-host mannerisms described in Eleutherophobia.  You shall have to judge for yourselves, dear readers, whether or not this is part of the Eleutherophobia series: it's third-person present tense that doesn't even follow Tom’s perspective, where the rest of the fics from here on out will go back to our regularly scheduled narration.

_Last time I saw you we had just split in two._  
_You were looking at me, I was looking at you._  
_You had a way so familiar but I could not recognize,_  
_Cause you had blood on your face and I had blood in my eyes_  
_But I could swear by your expression_  
_That the pain down in your soul was the same one down in mine._  
_That's the pain cuts a straight line down through the heart—we called it love._  
_So we wrapped our arms around each other_  
_Trying to shove ourselves back together._

—"The Origin of Love,"  _Hedwig and the Angry Inch_ (1998)

 

“Thanks, Mom.”  Cassie steps out of the car, turning to wave—only to find Michelle climbing out as well.

“If you think you’re getting away with me _not_ coming to the door to say hello, then you’ve got another think coming, young lady,” Michelle says.

Cassie can’t actually come up with a good argument against this that doesn’t sound ridiculously petulant—the best one she’s got right now sounds like _but_ _Moooooom_ even inside her own head—so she settles for sighing very loudly.  Bad enough that she had to get a ride with her mom to get to Jake’s house at all; this is only going to draw attention to that fact.  She could have flown, yes, but her mom was right that she didn’t want to show up in spandex to a formal-ish dinner at her boyfriend’s house where she is sort-of-officially meeting his parents.  She could have taken her bike, but then she’d have shown up sweaty, and she doesn’t exactly have a driver’s license yet so she couldn’t borrow her dad’s car…

She’s actually considering appearances, she thinks with bittersweet humor; Rachel would be so proud.

Michelle becomes the one to lead the way up the driveway and ring the doorbell.  Jake’s mom opens the door within seconds, a dishtowel slung over one shoulder and her face slightly flushed.

“Michelle!” she says, clearly surprised.  “It’s been a while.”

Cassie considers turning into a bug and hiding under the welcome mat.  She vows to start working on getting her license the instant she wakes up tomorrow morning.

“And Cassie.”  Jean turns to her as well, clearing her throat.  “Thank you for coming.  You look wonderful.”

Cassie’s not sure about that—her jeans are only faded, not dirty, but they’re still faded, and her flannel only mostly fits—but she smiles and murmurs “Thank you” anyway.

“I’m just here dropping Cassie off—would you like me to come get her in, say, two hours?” Cassie’s mom says.

“Oh, it’ll be no trouble to drive her home when we’re done.”  Jean shifts a few steps back to let them step through the door, revealing Jake standing in the hallway beyond.  He and Cassie make eye contact for a second’s worth of mutual exasperation over their mothers’ shoulders.  “And please, come in, have a seat!”

“Oh, no, I really can’t stay,” Michelle says, to Cassie’s relief.

“How about a rain check, at the very least?”  Jean smiles warmly.  “I really feel like I owe it to you.  Considering that Jake wouldn’t even be alive right now if not for you, it’s the least I can do.”

No one would even notice if she turned into a cockroach, Cassie thinks with probably-unrealistic optimism.  They’re busy talking to each other, and she could fly right over their heads.  Heck, she could get Jake to morph with her, because now she can practically see him considering it.  They could flee into the night and forget this whole silly idea.

“No thanks necessary,” Michelle’s saying.  “It’s all part of the job.  Admittedly, that’s the only time my job has _ever_ involved getting called out to deal with an injured tiger that turned up on the floor of a shopping mall in the middle of the night, but I’ve dealt with stranger calls in my time.”

“Well, you’ve done a lot more good for the world than I ever have,” Jean says.  “And you’ve raised a wonderful daughter.  You must be so proud.”  She leans in.  “I’ll swap you one of my hooligans to have another girl in the house.”

Michelle laughs.  “Jake is a very mature young man.  You have nothing to worry about.”

“Mature young man?   _My_ son?  Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”

It’s a conspiracy, Cassie thinks gloomily.  The moms of the world have ganged up to find every single possible way to humiliate their children, and right now they’re succeeding.

“Mom,” another voice says, and Cassie startles.  “Let Dr. Day go before we all die of old age.”

Tom is leaning against the doorway that leads from the front hall to the kitchen, a stack of plates propped against one hip.  Cassie feels a touch of annoyance with herself.  She’s had several conversations with Tom, even spent an entire afternoon stuck in a conference room with him; she should know better than to jump every time he speaks unexpectedly.

“Oh, it’s all right...” Jean starts.

“Really, I should be going,” Cassie’s mom says.  “I’ll call you about that coffee.”  With a final reassuring smile at Cassie, she ducks outside and pulls the door shut behind her.

Finally, Cassie finds herself alone in the front hall with Jake’s family.

“What happened to ‘don’t air condition the outdoors’?” Tom asks Jean.  His tone is so serious that Cassie thinks for a second he’s actually annoyed with her, but Jean laughs.

“I don’t think I raised you to be this much of a brat,” she says fondly.  She shoos him back into the kitchen, and after a second follows herself.

Jake and Cassie are left alone in the front hallway.  Looking at each other, they both start to speak at the same time—and then stop at the same time.  Cassie gestures for Jake to continue.

“Thanks.”  He clears his throat.  “For doing this, I mean.”

She smiles, stepping forward to take his hand.  “It’s my pleasure.  Really.  I like your family, and…”  She glances down shyly, feeling her cheeks heat up.  “It’s kind of romantic, right?  Remember what a big deal it was when Juan brought Allison home to meet his family?”

Jake thinks for a second, frowning.  “No,” he admits at last.  “I think I missed that.”

“It was some high-quality gossip for a whole two weeks of eighth grade,” Cassie says.  “And I think it’s sweet that your parents still do the whole family-dinner thing.”

Jake rolls his eyes.  “They dropped it for a while there, but for some reason they’ve gotten really into the concept again since... you know, the past year or so.”

Cassie can venture a few guesses as to why that is, but she doesn’t bother to mention them out loud.  Instead she gently tugs Jake over to the living room, where they sit down.  There’s a set of four slash marks across the back of the sofa upholstery, and the picture on the mantelpiece has changed—the formal photo from Tom’s high school graduation has been replaced by one of Jake and all his cousins at what appears to be Rachel’s bat mitzvah—but other than that the room is just as Cassie remembers.

“So why didn’t you just fly here?” Jake asks, when they’re both sitting down.

“My mom thought I shouldn’t show up to dinner barefoot in a leotard,” Cassie explains.  “And I don’t _exactly_ have a driver’s license just yet.  I have been kind of busy, you know.”

There it is, that slow smile she loves to draw out.  “Speaking of which,” Jake says, “how are the hork-bajir?”

Cassie sighs, making a face.  “The hork-bajir themselves are actually pretty good.  Toby’s a firehouse, and they’ve got several thousand new members to their colony since the war ended, of course.  They’re also the best thing that ever happened to Yellowstone.  The _humans,_ on the other hand…”

“That bad?” Jake says, serious again.

Cassie nods.  “Okay, they’re not all bad, not even most of them, but…”

Jake raises an eyebrow.

“But a very vocal minority wants the hork-bajir classified as animals, not people,” Cassie says sadly.  “Funny how often these tend to be the same guys who would benefit from selling or experimenting on alien specimens, or else using them as unpaid labor...”

“Shit,” Jake whispers, turning away.

“Yeah.”  Cassie presses her lips together.

“But they’re just a couple people, right?”

“Yeah, and everyone _else_ is stuck on the idea of hork-bajir being ‘living weapons’ that need to have their rights restricted out the wazoo for ‘the common good’ or ‘public safety’ or whatever.”

“Have any of them actually _met_ any hork-bajir?” Jake says, indignant.  “Like, long enough to notice that they don’t even kill the trees that they eat if they can help it?”

“They haven’t.”  Cassie glances down, picking at a loose couch thread before realizing that that’s probably rude and looking back up at Jake instead.  He has this unfiltered, unflinching way of holding eye contact that sometimes verges on too much for Cassie to bear, like staring into the sun.  “Jake, most of them have only ever seen—or interacted with—hork-bajir-controllers.  And that’s not an excuse for the way they’re acting, nowhere close, but it does explain some of why they’d feel—”

“Midget?”

They both jump, which sort of proves Cassie’s point.

“Yeah?” Jake looks up.

Tom offers them a faint smile.  “Mom wants to know if either of you want a drink.  We’ve got orange juice, milk, assorted sodas, water,” he lists for Cassie, “chardonnay, absinthe, Everclear, motor oil, human blood…”

Jake sighs loudly.  “ _Please_ go away and be embarrassing somewhere else.”

“Just water is fine, thanks,” Cassie says.

“Sure.”  Tom ducks back out of the room.

Honestly, Cassie’s never quite sure what to make of him.  Tom is like Jake with the intensity turned up: his hair and eyes are dark enough to be almost black in contrast to Jake’s warm medium-brown, and he’s nearly hulking whereas Jake is just average-tall.  Jake’s soft lines are all hard angles on Tom, from the bounce of curls that Jake lets grow and Tom has shaved down to almost nothing to the round curve of Jake’s cheeks and the harsh line of Tom’s.  But of course it’s more than just physical appearances.  Jake tends to come off as thoughtful, patient, slow to smile but even slower to frown; Tom’s default expression is a blank slate unbroken by even twitches or blinks.  Jake’s smooth, calm voice makes you want to trust him; Tom’s utterly flat monotone tends to be unnerving and hard to decipher.  It’s only when she started to pay close attention that she realized just how often he’s being ironic or sarcastic.

Cassie knows it hasn’t always been that way, of course.  She only saw Tom a small handful of times before he was infested, but she can pull up vague memories of a hyperactive, fast-spoken young man who demonstrated all of their dad’s quick reactivity and their mom’s verbal fluidity.  There are other memories in the middle that tend to interfere, though: Tom’s face twisted in anger as Jake slammed into a hospital wall with skin-splitting force, Tom’s fist wrapped around a rock with every intention of smashing Tobias’s skull in, Tom’s voice rapidly shaping death threats as a tiny smile pulled up the corner of that narrow mouth...

All in all, she prefers the awkward stiffness to _that_.

“How are you?” she asks Jake.  It’s a loaded question, she knows perfectly well.  She asks it anyway.

He glances down, hesitating.  “I, uh, I’m all right.  Y’know.”  He visibly casts around for a safer topic.  “Did I tell you about that weird offer I got from the military?” 

She shakes her head.  “Does this have to do with...?”  She looks toward the kitchen.  Technically speaking, they’re not legally allowed to talk about the incident with the Skrit Na ship.  Tom of course knows about it already, but she’s pretty sure Jake hasn’t told his parents any specific details.  “With what happened two weeks ago.”

Jake considers for a second.  “Yes and no, I think.  The military’s been trying to get together their own squadron of morphers pretty much since the end of the war, and President Boatwright just now gave them the green light.  If I had to guess, the incident with the Skrit Na ship might have been turned into a memo about how none of that would have happened if the Air Force’d just had their own morphers to send in instead of relying on untrained kids.”

Cassie sighs.  She’d like to believe differently, but she’s spent most of the last year rubbing shoulders with the Washington D.C. elite.

“The other impetus, if I had to guess...”  And now it’s Jake’s turn to twist halfway around and glance toward the door.  There’s no one there, but he drops his voice anyway.  “The cops, the FBI, and the National Guard were all helpless against Margaret White.”

Cassie might not have recognized the name if not for Jake checking that Tom was out of earshot first, but that context is enough for her to connect it to the string of host-murders last year.  To Jake himself, reported dead on the ten o’clock news before a hasty correction had been issued. 

“It took another morpher to stop her,” Jake says softly.  “And Tom only managed to do it after she’d committed over ten murders.  I’d be extremely surprised if there wasn’t a memo to the president pointing that out somewhere in the request for a law-enforcement morphing team.”

“Huh.”  Cassie sits back.  He’s not wrong, although she never thought about it that way before.

“Just a guess.”  Jake shrugs.

“So the president said it’s okay,” Cassie says slowly.  “And now we’re gonna have a lot more company.” 

Jake nods.  “They’re starting slow, probably with less than ten people at a time, but the eventual goal is to have an elite team of one hundred morphers for the UN peacekeeping force, one hundred just for the U.S.” 

“So the call to you was because they want you to teach the morphers how it’s done,” Cassie says.

Jake sits back a little, clearly caught off-guard.  “Sometimes I forget how crazy good you are at figuring these things out.  It never lasts long, but I do forget.”

Cassie bites her lip around a smile.  He’s so sweet.  “It makes sense.  You’re the best person for the job, seven or eight times over.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jake says, “but I do seem to be the only one who’s semi-qualified and also willing.”

Cassie reaches out on impulse and puts her hand over his where it rests on the couch.  He startles a little, looking down like he’s not sure what to do with the place where their fingers are touching.  She considers taking her hand back, but decides against it.  She doesn’t want to hurt him.

“If I make a total mess of the first class I teach, they’ll probably just fire me and find someone else.”  He makes an effort to sound carefree about the whole thing.

“You didn’t make a mess of the six of us,” Cassie points out.

She can tell right away that this was the wrong thing to say.  Jake turns away sharply, mouth pressed together into a hard line.  It’s clear from the ragged edge of his posture, the weary lines at the corners of his eyes, that he couldn’t disagree more.

Tobias is missing.  Ax puts on a good show but he’s addicted to the thrill of the chase, reckless enough that one of these days he’ll probably get himself killed.  Jake leaves the house maybe twice a week during a good week.  Marco’s endless relationships never last more than a month apiece, because anyone who got close enough to spend the night would be unable to miss how often he cries in his sleep.  Cassie herself sleepwalks through entire days, scanning constantly for anything at all which will keep her here and make her time worth it.  Rachel...

They don’t talk about Rachel.  A part of Cassie hates herself for not having the courage to break that silence.

“You’ll do great, I’m sure of it,” Cassie says at last.  “I’d trust you to teach me to morph, even if it’s just showing a bunch of other people all the things we learned the hard way with trial and error.”

“Like, say, don’t morph squirrels alone for the first time without telling anyone?”  Jake turns back to her, expression softening.

Cassie grins, glad to see him poking fun at her.  “Exactly.  Although let’s hope no one in the super-secret military class is dumb enough to try that, even without you there to tell them outright.”

Jake has his mouth open to respond when the doorbell rings.

He starts to get to his feet to go to the door slowly enough that Cassie can’t help a private smile; he’s clearly trying to avoid being the one to answer it.  Sure enough, Tom makes it to the door while Jake’s still half-standing, pulling it open with a pointed glance into the living room that makes it clear he’s not fooled either.

The young woman standing on the doorstep is distantly familiar to Cassie, who thinks they probably went to high school together but can’t be sure.  She’s a couple years older, a strikingly pretty Asian-American girl of nineteen or twenty with black hair that cascades down to her waist except where it’s chopped off into square-cut bangs across her forehead.  She’s wearing a deep red sundress and black strappy sandals, carrying a bunch of flowers tucked under one arm.

Tom leans forward and presses a soft kiss to her cheek.  “Overachiever,” he says without inflection.

“I can try too hard if I want to try too hard,” the young woman answers, voice equally flat.

Cassie tenses, not sure if they’re about to start arguing.

“And you do most certainly get results.”  Tom’s tone hasn’t changed, but his posture softens.

“Can’t blame a girl for trying.”  The young woman suddenly giggles, causing Tom to huff a small laugh as well. 

And Cassie realizes out of the blue that they’re not arguing; they’re _teasing_ each other.  Sort of like Rachel and Tobias would, any time they forgot they had an audience for their flirtation.  There’s no shift in either one’s voice to signal it, no playful tone, and yet they’re leaning toward each other, both smiling now, so it’s clear they understand each other.

“It’s not every day I get formally introduced to Cassie Day,” the young woman adds, dropping her voice.  “The youngest member of a presidential cabinet in the history of the country, the girl saving every nonhuman zombie on the face of the planet, objectively the coolest feminist icon alive since Nellie Bly kicked the bucket...”

“Your inner fan girl is showing,” Tom tells her.

“I can gush if I want to gush.  Bet you didn’t know this, but one time she saved the entire planet from alien takeover.”

“Does she know you used to get paid to stalk her?” Tom asks.

“Shut up.”  Again, her tone is so flat you could mistake her for being serious; it’s only Tom’s answering laugh that tells Cassie she’s not.

Cassie pushes to her feet, face hot with embarrassment now—she’s not actually anything special, not like they’re saying—and quickly drags Jake into the front foyer before either of them can say anything else they probably wouldn’t want her to overhear.

“Um, hi,” Cassie says.  She sticks out her hand for the other girl to take, suddenly aware that her own jeans and button-down hardly measure up to the perfect match between the other girl’s lipstick shade and the fabric of her dress, nor yet the soft silver of her earrings and purse strap.  Maybe she should’ve dressed even nicer.  “I’m Cassie.  Day.”

“Bonnie Park.”  Her hand is soft, nails manicured, skin smooth in a way that speaks to a job performed in front of a computer rather than outside in the hay.  “It’s a pleasure.”

“She’s a big fan,” Tom intones, which earns him a smack on the arm.

“And she’s just in time for dinner.”  Jake’s dad has entered the foyer, sleeves pushed up and hands freshly washed from some other mysterious part of the food preparation process.

“Hi Dr. Berenson.”  Bonnie thrusts the flowers at him like they’re a weapon.  He catches them, looking somewhat taken aback.

Well, Cassie notes, it’s nice to know she’s not the only one around here who’s feeling a little nervous.

“Thank you.”  He cradles the flowers gingerly.  “Please, just ‘Steve’ is fine.”

“Okay.”  Bonnie retreats back a step, taking refuge next to Tom, who is watching her with a soft smile.

“These are lovely, really.”  Steve has traces of that odd flatness to his tone as well, which makes it hard to tell how sincere he’s being.

Cassie wonders, with a touch of annoyance at herself, if she’s going to be able to stop automatically mistrusting ex-hosts any time soon.  Yeah.  Sure.  Probably around the time she stops flinching at loud noises and feeling half-suffocated any time she has to put on outer clothes that might restrict her in case she needs to morph in a hurry.

“I’ll get a vase for these while you lot wash up for dinner,” Steve says.

They do as they’re told, Jake doing a bit of subtle nudging so that he and Cassie end up next to each other at the table with Bonnie and Tom across from them and his parents at either end.  The breakfast nook just off the kitchen where they all sit is a little drafty—the kitchen window itself is missing entirely, temporarily covered by translucent tarp and duct tape—but it’s a mild enough night.  Anyway, the large plates of warm food that Jake’s parents pass around more than make up for it.

Cassie isn’t sure what the dish is, some kind of beef with some kind of vegetables, but her days of being picky disappeared around the time she discovered her own willingness to eat raw seal and questionably-roasted _T. rex_.  The food itself is somewhat bland compared to her own dad’s preferred methodology of drowning everything in hot sauce, but nice all the same.

There are a few minutes’ silence after Jake’s dad finishes blessing the food and they all dig in.  Bonnie becomes the one to break it.

“So, uh, what happened to your kitchen window?” she asks.

The question is aimed in the general direction of Jake’s parents, but it’s Jake himself who pointedly props his chin on his fist and says, “Yeah, _Tom_ , what happened to the kitchen window?”

Tom turns to Bonnie.  “Well, you see, Jake did.”

“Uh-huh?”  She looks from one of them to the other, seeming to sense (as Cassie does) that she has just wandered into a minefield.

“Tom's the one who shut it,” Jake says.

“Exactly.”  Tom tilts his head at Bonnie as if imploring her for sympathy. “I saw the kitchen window open, I shut it like the responsible person I am—you're welcome, by the way,” he tells Jake, “—and then you came along and flew through it.”

“And you didn't think that maybe, just maybe, it had been left open for a  _reason_?”

“I knew perfectly well why you left it open,” Tom says patiently, “but every time you do that the kitchen fills up with flies, which apparently we are not allowed to kill, which is friggin’ unhygienic.  So I figured I could spare us all some trouble and that you could just use the front door when you got back like everyone else on the planet does. Heaven forbid."

“It was a very educational afternoon,” Steve interjects, tone dry.  “For instance, I had always thought it was a myth that birds of prey couldn't see windows.”

“It is a myth,” Jake mumbles, looking down at his plate.  “I was moving at 150 miles an hour by the time I saw it, I just didn't have time to pull up.”

Cassie presses a hand over her mouth to try and stifle the urge to giggle.

“And _I_ learned that Santa Barbara contractors are still adding an atrocious markup to their prices over a year after their little spike in services occurred,” Jean adds.  “I am _not_ supporting that kind of war profiteering.”

“Hence the giant dracon burn still on the front of the house,” Tom tells Bonnie in a stage-whisper.

“So, point is,” Jake says, “I made the perfectly logical assumption that a window which was open when I’d left would still be open when I got back—”

“Whereas I made the perfectly logical assumption that we didn’t want the kitchen filling up with bugs and possibly burglars while he took his sweet time getting home,” Tom finishes.

“And here we all are.” Steve smiles, expression wryly exasperated.

Cassie puts a hand on Jake’s knee under the table.  Yes, they can laugh about it now, but at the time it had to have hurt.  She’s never gone through a window herself, but both Tobias and Marco have talked about just how unpleasant it is.

Tom leans an elbow on the table, seeming not to notice his mother’s disapproving glance.  “You know, I know a guy who knows a guy...”  He looks over at Bonnie.  “What’s his name, Wendell?”

“Wesley,” she provides.  “Yeah, I know the one you mean.”  She turns to Jean.  “He has his own little startup, does a lot of contracting work.”

“Plus, he’s more likely to be understanding, being a zombie and all,” Tom adds.  As soon as Tom says it Jake winces, glancing over at their father.

Cassie can guess what that is about; the word “zombie” enjoyed brief popularity as a term for an ex-host, but it fell completely out of favor thanks largely to Eva’s work to raise awareness about the stigma against the hosts.  Nowadays it’s the kind of thing that politicians and radio commentators tend to catch themselves using and apologize about—but they use it just the same.

Steve shoves his glasses a little further up his nose.  “You know how I feel about that word.”

“What, 'zombie'?” Bonnie says, eyebrows drawing together slightly.  “Personally, I don’t mind it in the slightest.”

Cassie feels herself shrinking a little in her chair.  She’s not sure if Bonnie is genuinely confused or issuing a challenge, although she does know that Bonnie has a lot more moxie than she does to have said it at all.  “Isn’t it, well, a little rude?” Cassie asks softly.   This is _not_ her fight, and she’s hoping it won’t be a fight period.

Bonnie shrugs.  “Well, yeah,” she says casually, “but it’s better than being called a liar.”

Cassie blinks.  She considers that she might be naïve, if she had no idea that was the closest possible alternative.

“Or deadhead, slop-brain, faker, slug-sucker...” Tom lists dispassionately.

Steve winces at every word.

“Mal- _lingerer_ ,” Bonnie says, as if relishing the word.

“There are the people who just call us ‘controllers,’” Tom points out.  “That’s always fun.”

“Whiner,” Bonnie adds, “yeerkhead, brain dead, cray-cray...”

Tom twirls his index finger next to his right ear.  That one Cassie’s seen before; funny how it’s come to mean _ex-host_ without ceasing to mean _crazy_.  Bonnie makes a gesture like she’s controlling an invisible marionette; that one Cassie’s not familiar with, but she can guess the meaning well enough.

“Or that one Glenn Beck always loves to use?”  Bonnie glances over at Tom for assistance.

“Oh, you mean that thing where he starts a sentence with ‘just because some alien made you its bitch...’ and then goes on to explain how the hosts are just as much to blame for the destruction as the yeerks are?” Tom says.

“Yeah, that!”

Steve looks even more horrified.  Cassie is starting to regret having asked the question.

“Look.”  Bonnie turns back to Cassie.  “It’s just that ‘zombie,’ at least, acknowledges that there’s a reason we’re creepy and we’re kooky.”

“Yeah, exactly.”  Tom tilts a hand at her.  “It’s not ideal, but it’s not bad either.” 

Cassie considers this information.  “Makes sense.”

 _"Or_ you could always use the correct term and say ‘ex-host,’” Steve says.

“No need to be formal.”  Tom shrugs.  “We’re all zombies here.”

Immediately both his parents turn to look at Cassie in surprise.  Bonnie snaps her head around to peer at Jake.

Cassie winces slightly.  She does talk about Aftran 942—including how they met—when the question comes up in interviews, but she also deliberately doesn’t draw attention to it.  She really doesn’t consider herself an ex-host as such, especially not after watching the hell that Jake went through with Temrash 114 or the long process of Eva’s recovery from five years’ worth of infestation.

“Sorry,” Tom says softly.  “That was probably oversharing, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know if I _actually_ qualify.”  Cassie smiles at him to show she doesn’t mind.  “It was only a few hours.”

“For me it was only a few days,” Jake points out.

Bonnie is still staring at Cassie; she doesn’t even seem to realize she’s doing it.

“I was, uh, briefly allied with a yeerk from the Peace Movement after we sort of saved each other from a leopard that had been humanized.”  Cassie gives the short version.

“Hang on a second.”  Tom draws himself up.  “You’re seriously telling me that that escaped leopard thing was actually a real escaped leopard and not...”  He gestures at her and Jake. 

“Uh, yeah.”  Jake’s mouth quirks into a smile.  “Just a leopard.”

“So then that beached whale,” Tom says, “in the spring of ‘99...”

“Just a whale,” Jake drawls.  “You know, we’re not secretly behind _every single_ piece of weird animal news from the past four years.” 

“‘Witnesses describe two raptors riding on roof of local police car’?” Bonnie asks.

“Okay, yeah, that was us,” Jake admits.

“‘San Anita Racetrack jockey claims talking horse helped him win’?”

“Yeah, that one too.”

“‘Animal control summoned to Hope Ranch following reports of possible giant cat on Via Tranquila rooftops’?”

“Where are you even getting these from?”

“All news stories the yeerks suppressed at CNSB,” Bonnie said.  “‘Truck driver claims tank-driving gorilla attempted to run him over’?”

“Okay, okay, maybe we caused _most_ of the weird animal news in the area.”

“‘Rescuers led to downed submarine by helpful dolphins'?”

Sighing enormously, Jake nods.

Folding her hands on the table in front of her, Bonnie silently rests her case.

“Anyway, Cassie, I’m sorry,” Tom says.  “Not my place.  Your history is your business.  Jake, I’m not sorry at all.”

Cassie shrugs loosely, not angry and happy to show it.  “Like I said: it was a couple hours at most.”

Bonnie opens her mouth, considers for a second, and then shuts it again.  When she does speak, it’s clearly not what she was about to ask.  “As Eva always says, it’s not a contest.”

“Here's to that.” Tom tilts his water glass at her.

“Be a pretty crappy contest if so,” Jake says.

“Prizes include Sharing t-shirts no one wants, Sharing koozies no one wants, and Sharing bumper stickers that, oh look, no one wants,” Bonnie tells Cassie.  “And don’t worry, everyone’s a winner.  Congratulations.”

Cassie laughs.  “Thank you, I think.”

“If you do really well, you can work your way up to owning a Sharing-built nightclub that no one wants.”  Tom grins at her.  “I also technically still own an entire warehouse’s worth of hunter-killer ‘bots in Isla Vista, so maybe you could have one of those as a door prize?”

Cassie feels herself relaxing ever more.  “And what would I do with a hunter ‘bot?”

Tom frowns in consideration.  “They’re too large to make good paperweights, too heavy to use as makeshift soccer balls, and too round to serve as doorstops.  I’ve got nothing.”

Jean sets her fork down to rest a hand on Tom’s arm, her eyebrows drawing together.  “Shouldn’t you be reporting all this to the proper authorities, honey?”

“No,” Tom says patiently, “because then the proper authorities would have an entire warehouse’s worth of hunter ‘bots.”

Cassie smirks.  She can’t argue with that logic.  So far the U.S. government—and the people who steal from the government—haven’t done anything _too_ idiotic or horrifying with the small handful of spaceships and dracon beams they’ve managed to repurpose, but she’s pretty sure it’s only a matter of time.

Jean frowns, not letting it go.  “Yes, but if someone found them...”

Tom gently pulls his arm away, offering her a smile that looks like it’s meant to be reassuring.  “They’re in biometrically sealed containers.  You’d need my DNA—or Alloran’s, or Frank Carrington’s I guess—to open them.  Right now they’re safest exactly where they are.”

“Still...” Jean says.

“Speaking of which, how’s the non-human contingent of z— uh, ex-hosts coming along?” Tom asks Cassie.

The topic change might be transparent, but she seizes on it with gratitude.  “The taxxons are doing more than the human governments ever felt like doing to protect their current habitat,” she explains, smiling grimly.  “Funny how ‘you will be eaten by sentient anacondas’ is a more effective threat to enforce anti-jungle-clearance laws than a few half-hearted inspectors ever were.  Local governments are finally adjusting, so I’m hopeful.  As for the hork-bajir...”  Cassie taps the side of her fork against the table a few times.  “They’re a lot less willing to be aggressive to protect themselves, and their situation is trickier.”

Tom is nodding with what appears to be genuine interest.  It’s a missed opportunity, Cassie thinks for the umpteenth time, that her own Resident Alien Council and Matter Over Mind are not more closely allied.  However, Alloran is loosely affiliated with Matter Over Mind, and the hork-bajir won’t work within ten degrees of separation of Alloran. It’s as simple—and as tortuously complex—as that.

“I’m sure you’ve seen the news about that petition?” Cassie asks him.

Jake glances up from where he was repeatedly poking a sliver of green pepper with his fork.  “Petition?”

“Forty-odd of the more useless celebrities in Hollywood signed a document calling for the hork-bajir to be expelled from the planet,” his mom explains.

“No actual politicians, though, right?” Tom says.

“Might not matter, if they generate enough popular support to pressure the government into thinking that’s what the people want,” Cassie says bitterly.  “Toby released a counter-statement, of course, but that got about five percent of the coverage that the initial petition did.”

“That’s how it always works.”  Bonnie sighs.  “It’s not news if people expect it to happen.  Put it after the headlines and slap a visual on top in the hope that at least a few people will stay tuned, but never hope for much.”

“People suck?” Jake suggests.

“People suck,” Bonnie confirms.

“This petition won’t go anywhere.”  Cassie surprises herself with how certain she sounds, but she does want to be certain.  “The UN won’t let it.”

“ _Toby_ won’t let it,” Jake says, sounding even more confident that Cassie does.

She smiles.  “Truth.”

“Assuage my curiosity,” Steve says.  “When you’re communicating with Ms. Hamee and the rest of the community, which language do you use?  English?  Galard?  Hork-bajir?”  He glances around at the rest of the table.  “Is there a word for the hork-bajir language?”

“Th’grarfthrin,” Bonnie supplies.  “Which literally just translates to ‘speak.’  So... not really.”

“We use a little bit of everything, actually.”  Cassie smiles shyly.  “I’m doing my best to learn their language—preserving it for future generations is a whole other project, by the way—but they’re usually happy to default to English when I get lost.  We probably should be doing everything in Galard to save time on translation, but while I’m _bad_ at speaking hork-bajir, I’m _atrocious_ at Galard.”

“Trust me, it’s nothing personal,” Tom says.  “That’s just a sign you had the misfortune to be born with human vocal range.  I mean...” He looks at Bonnie.  “Does any human actually speak Galard?  Like really speak it?”

“Nope,” she says cheerfully.  “They all just make hacking and spitting noises and hope to produce some actual words in there.”

Cassie, once again, has a second of that strange off-balance feeling that comes with the utter casualness of the conversation.  What’s so bizarre about the way they’re talking, to the point where she has to fight back a surge of anxiety, is the sheer openness of it all.  She’s known that aliens exist for over four years now, and she still finds herself thrown off by the realization that, these days, _everyone_ knows.  She and Jake can just _talk_ about this stuff, without bothering to check whether or not anyone can overhear.

“Like, I can understand Galard a good eighty, ninety percent of the time,” Tom is explaining.  “But the only humans who are any good at producing it are the ones with, like, perfect pitch.  Or opera training.  Or some kind of crazy skills like that.”

“Not like it’s much better being human and learning hork-bajir language... We spent how many months living with them?” Jake says to Cassie.  “And I didn’t manage to pick up more than two or three words.”

Cassie smiles.  “It’s a lot trickier than ninth-grade French, that’s for sure.  And like I said, they’re pretty good about defaulting to English to help me out.  They actually like it best when they can code-switch constantly.  Their language might not have words for ‘Congress’ or ‘petition,’ or even any written form, but then English doesn’t have a good way to describe the act of thinning the top branches of larger trees to allow enough sunlight to reach the ground at optimal levels to stimulate new growth, which is a process they can describe in a single word.”

“How much of the language do you know, then?” Jean asks Bonnie.

“Oh, just a few dozen words.”  Bonnie glances slyly at Tom; they share a private smile.

“A few dozen curse words,” Tom adds.  “Which you’re a lot more likely to pick up in the yeerk pool than small talk or verb forms.”

“Oh, so _that’s_ where you acquired it all.”  Steve raises his eyebrows.  He’s smiling, though, to show he’s only teasing.

“Goshdarn yeerks,” Bonnie says.  “Absolutely terrible influence on the youth of today.”

“I still have ‘learn Galard’ on my to-do list,” Cassie admits, “since it is the most useful language to have access to when trying to create any kind of official communication.  Right now we pay a translator through the nose, which is the sort of drain on resources the project definitely doesn’t need.”

“Give me a call sometime,” Tom says.  “I know a few dozen out-of-work zombies,” (Steve sighs, but doesn’t say anything.) “—some of whom are fluent, who’d probably love to help.”

“Yeah,” Cassie says.  “Thanks.”

“Plus, most of them have got experience doing battle with useless celebrities,” Bonnie points out.  “If, y’know, any of the petition-signers show up at your door or try to get a protest going.”

“Exactly.”  Tom gestures with his spoon as if to present Bonnie to the world.  “Luckily, Matter Over Mind doesn’t have to rely on useless-actor endorsements to get publicity when we’ve got an insider or two with the local news.”

“Speaking of which,” Steve says.  “You’re still at CNSB?”

He timed it badly; Bonnie has to swallow so hastily she almost chokes.  However, after a second—and a sip of water—she clears her throat and says, “Yeah, it’s not bad.”

“She's being modest,” Tom says. “She got promoted.”

“Was this because of the work you did while everyone else was at the trial?” Jake asks.

Cassie tenses automatically at the mention of Visser One’s trial, which she still writes off as an utter mess, despite the upside of reestablishing communication with Jake.

“Sort of.”  Bonnie turns to Cassie to explain a little more.  “They just had me collecting, tagging, and aggregating footage for a long time there.  Which wasn’t bad...”

“In other words, she was getting paid to give you lot even more air time,” Tom adds.

Cassie laughs.  “I’m so sorry for any embarrassing photos you might have had to witness in there.”

“The footage was all there, I was just pulling it out of storage,” Bonnie says.  “And regardless of what I said earlier, it really was a lot more odd stuff with aliens than odd stuff with ‘escaped zoo animals.’  You all...”  She gestures with her fork at Jake and Cassie.  “Are not _that_ newsworthy.”

Jake sighs.  “Well, at least someone thinks so.”

“Anyway, that was up until last month.  Now they’re giving me partial creative control over a new project,” Bonnie says.

“She’s gonna kick it in the ass,” Tom adds.

“What’s the new thing?” Jake asks.

“Sort of a series of film stories on people like the z—”  Bonnie clears her throat.  “On all the people affected by the war, actually.  I was the one who pitched it to my manager, and although she’s taking lead on the project, I’m allowed to have a lot of input on who to contact, what to ask, things like that.”

“Is either of us going to get a call sometime soon?”  Jake makes a small gesture to encompass himself and Cassie.

“We’re not that newsworthy, remember?” Cassie says, grinning at him.

“Actually, though,” Bonnie says, “it’s about broader experiences to do with the war, pretty much anyone in the greater L.A. area who interacted with aliens, like, at all.  We’re pulling celebrities where we can.  Some of the ones my boss found to interview about their experiences with UFOs or whatnot—Peter Jennings, Dick Van Dyke, Sigourney Weaver—are from the A-list.”  She sits forward.  “Oh, and here’s a weird one for you: turns out Ann Coulter was in the habit of making a lot of spa appointments for about six months there.”

“Really?” Tom raises his eyebrows.

“No _way_ ,” Steve says at almost the same time. 

“Only six months, so it doesn’t explain her _entire_ personality,” Jean murmurs, which causes both Bonnie and Steve to laugh.

Cassie glances over at Jake, who appears just as baffled as she is.  “Spa appointments?” Jake says at last.

Tom and Bonnie share another private look.  “It’s a euphemism,” Tom explains.

“Euphemism for what?” Jake asks, annoyed.

Jean takes pity on them.  “For having somewhere you need to be for about an hour at a time once every three days, honey.”

“Ah.”  Cassie feels her eyes widen in comprehension.

“You know, appointments in that spa located _directly_ south of the mall?” Steve says.  “The one you can get to through the dressing room in the Gap?”

“Funny how that place got so popular back then.”  Jean taps her chin in mock-thoughtfulness.  “They had terrible service, would not recommend them at all.”

“If you’d like to file a formal complaint,” Tom says, “I know a lady who used to be real close with their general manager.”

“Okay, okay, we get it,” Jake says.

“And I would not trust the sanitation standards of their whirlpool.”  Steve continues as if Jake hasn’t spoken.  “Someone should probably have gotten a health inspector in there.”

“Still though, they were very inclusive to all species and made sure to accommodate their unique needs,” Jean points out.

Bonnie’s eyes are crinkled with amusement.

“Yeah,” Tom says, “but think about how often their usual appointment times conflicted with Sharing full members’ meetings.  Not very inclusive for community volunteers, when you think about it.”

Jake lets his head fall forward and land on the tabletop with a _thunk_.  “I hate you all,” he says into the tablecloth.

“Well, to be fair, they did have a monopoly on high-quality imported toiletries,” Steve says.  “Intergalactic shipping costs being what they are, it makes sense their options were limited.”

“Plus, think about how many police officers and and military personnel they attracted.”  Jean is grinning.  “That’s the sign of a strong community organization, if you ask me.”

“I’m disowning myself,” Jake mumbles.  “I’m leaving these dorks and I’m moving in with you, Cassie.”

Cassie pats him sympathetically on the shoulder.  Tries not to consider that possibility too seriously, no matter how much she might want to.

“Anyway.”  Steve turns to Bonnie.  “You were saying about Ann Coulter.”

“Oh.”  Bonnie shakes herself off, flushed slightly.  “Yes, anyway, it’s a project on the long-term impact of the invasion on the whole area.  My boss already booked Barbra Streisand—”  She turns to Jake and adds, “She got her hair appointments at the same spa as Ann Coulter.”

Jake lifts his head off the table.  “I hate you too,” he says.

“And up next we’re going to do Jeremy Jason McCole.”  Bonnie makes a face.

“Wasn’t he, uh, sort of voluntary?” Cassie says, frowning.

Tom’s smile has a cruel edge to it.  “At first, sure.  Funny how quickly the little shit changed his mind once he figured out what he was actually signing up for.”

Cassie feels a chill.  She’d nearly forgotten how much the yeerks used Tom for recruiting new Sharing members.

“Plus,” Bonnie says, “throw in some high cheekbones, full lips, white-boy-innocent good looks, and apparently all is forgiven.  After all, would a boy with curls _that_ perfectly permed ever do anything truly wrong?”

“Must be nice to be a human turd with the face of an angel,” Jake says.

Bonnie tilts the rim of her glass at him in acknowledgement.

They’ve all finished eating, Cassie realizes.  In fact, they did several minutes ago.  Nonetheless, no one has made a move to get up yet, and she realizes that she doesn’t particularly want to go anywhere.

“What the hell does Jeremy Jason McCole even _do_?” Tom asks.  “Outside of waste oxygen, that is.”

“He’s an actor.”  Jean smirks.  “In the most strictly technical sense of the word.  Currently, he’s ‘drawing on personal experience’ for a brief guest appearance on _As the World Turns_.”

“Your team got him?” Jake asks.  “Congrats.”

Jean and Steve share a knowing look.  “Might be too soon for that,” Jean says.  “Given how the network’s planning on using him.”

“They’re not going forward with that stupid _Shawshank Redemption_ meets _Romeo and Juliet_ plot, are they?” Tom asks.

“Wait, what?” Jake says.

Jean looks down, smoothing out her napkin.  “It’s actually a different subplot than McCole’s, but also manages to be even worse.  Some incredibly silly idea that some civilian writer managed to pitch to the producers.”  She rolls her eyes.  “That one minor character Ivan—some coworker of Lucinda’s we character assassinated last season—got ret-conned into being a controller to try and get rid of the viewer backlash.”

“You know,” Tom says, “claiming to have been controlled by yeerks is a very handy way for excusing one’s past bad behavior.”

For the umpteenth time, it takes Cassie half a second to realize that he is, of course, being sarcastic.  It’s his outward air of _boringness_ that keeps fooling her every time.

“Can you not?” Steve says wearily.

Tom holds up both hands in apology.

He probably gets it from Eva, or at least partially, Cassie thinks.  After all, Eva was in the habit of casually claiming to have invented the whole invasion as a way to get out of serving prison time for Visser One’s many murders, even before the invasion had ended.  That kind of comment probably falls in the same category as the word “zombie”: Tom or Bonnie can say it, Steve and Jean are in a grey zone, and she and Jake never should.

“Anyway.”  Jean sighs.  “They decided to resolve it through having Ivan—and I cannot make this nonsense up—tunnel out the side of the yeerk pool to escape during a feeding.”

Bonnie bursts out laughing.

“Oh goodness,” Steve drawls.

“I mean, that _would_ be a long way to dig in that little time,” Cassie says slowly, turning it over in her mind.  “But if he had some kind of sharp object... I mean, the walls are mostly dirt, and he wouldn’t have to get all the way out, just into another room where he could pass off as a controller and then sneak out.  It seems like it’d be stretching the truth a little, but—”  She cuts herself off rather than finish the thought.

“But no more than soap operas normally do?” Jean suggests dryly.

“Trust me, she’s not going to be offended if you call the show unrealistic,” Tom says.

“I’m really not.”  Jean smiles.  “It’s actually fun, not being particularly constrained by the rules of reality.”

“And the issue isn’t timing.”  Tom shrugs.  “It’s getting any kind of digging implement in the first place.”

“Well,” Cassie says, “if you hid one in your clothes—”

“Hid it from the yeerk that walked you in there?” Tom says.

She frowns.  “Okay, so, you could come up with something on the fly.”

“It’d have to be improvisation, yeah.”

“I assume digging by hand doesn’t get you anywhere?” Cassie asks.

“Good way to rip off fingernails, can attest, but I assume that’s not the goal.”  Tom is smiling now, clearly enjoying the debate.  “You’ve got to come up with a plan, find the necessary tools, and carry it out, all in—”  He glances around at the rest of the table.  “Let’s be generous and give her twenty minutes, yeah?”

Steve leans his chin on his hand.  “Yes, although it would be _very_ impressive if you managed to come up with some plan without noticing any relevant details about it beforehand.”

Cassie laughs nervously.  It’s kind of mind-bending to think about.  She hadn’t considered before, but of course it would have to be something the human knew nothing whatsoever about in advance if the yeerk knew nothing about it in advance.  “Okay, let’s see, what if there’s a diversion?”

“I like your thinking.”  Tom gives her a little bow.  “Any time there were teenage delinquents running around breaking things, you could end up with up to an hour’s worth of freedom amidst all the chaos.”

Cassie twitches when she registers the casual way he referred to the experience of being trapped in a cage as “freedom.”  Which it was, of course, relatively speaking.  She’s also determinedly not thinking about that _fingernails_ comment too hard.

“You make us sound like a bunch of drunken hooligans vandalizing park benches,” Jake drawls.

“And never getting home before curfew,” Jean adds.

“And turning in late homework.”  Steve reaches over and ruffles Jake’s hair.  He ducks out of the way with a noise of annoyance.

“And constantly forgetting to mow the lawn,” Tom says.  “Cassie?”

The lack of shift in tone throws her for another second.  “Okay, how about trying to grab a weapon from a guard?” she suggests.  “If I’m allowed to have some chaos anyway.”

“If the guard carrying it was a hork-bajir-controller, you’d probably lose a hand along the way,” Tom says.  “You okay with that?”

Cassie considers.  “I’ve survived worse.  So, yeah.”

When she makes these kinds of comments at home, her parents tend to drop whatever they’re holding as they exclaim with shock and horror.  A lot of the time one of them will say “You didn’t mean that,” or “Not _really_ , right honey?”

This time around, Bonnie snickers and murmurs something about Cassie being a badass.  Tom just nods, silently conceding the point to her.

“Okay, so now you’ve got your weapon and you’re bleeding to death,” he says.  “What next?”

Stumped for the moment, Cassie tilts her head to the side to consider.

“Dracon beams can cauterize wounds,” Steve offers.  “Level seven or lower, or else you’d have a whole host of other problems.”

“Level four or higher, or else you’ve just given yourself a muscle ache for your trouble,” Tom adds.

“Okay, so I shoot myself in the arm.”  Cassie pauses for a second to take in the sheer surreality of this conversation, happening around the most ordinary television-worthy dinner table she’s ever sat at.  Jean is jotting down notes on a post-it as the others talk, Jake is watching her while absently twirling his fork in one hand, and Tom and Bonnie have their heads tilted slightly toward each other as they listen to her.  “From there,” she continues, “I turn it up, blast out of the cage, and...”

“Get shot by about forty different controllers,” Bonnie says.  “You just drew way too much attention to yourself.”

Jake crosses his arms.  “I thought we just agreed that there are andalite bandits rampaging through the yeerk pool.”

“There are six of you, not four hundred,” Tom says.  “You don’t take up that much space.”

“Okay, fine.”  Cassie drums her fingers on the tabletop, turning over possibilities.  “So I have some wiggle room, but I can’t be ridiculously obvious about it.”

“Is she allowed to morph?” Jake asks.

“Now that would be a huge gimme,” Tom says.

“Plus, we definitely don’t have the budget for any kind of exotic animals.”  Jean taps her pen on her chin.  “Nor yet the salary for any of the half a dozen hork-bajir and andalites working in Hollywood right now.”

“But just for the sake of the argument.”  Jake glances around at them.  “She could be a host who could morph, right?”

“Even if she was,” Bonnie says, “that would create a whole bunch of issues of its own, because—”

Tom makes a sudden motion underneath the table; Cassie’s pretty sure he just kicked Bonnie in the ankle.  No one else seems to see it, but Cassie knows that something happened because Bonnie stops talking suddenly.  Bonnie glances at Tom, who meets her eyes and then flicks his gaze for half a second toward where Jean and Steve are sitting at either end of the table.

The whole thing is over in a span of two seconds, and Bonnie is speaking again.

“Because, among other things, where would you get the DNA you needed?” she asks.

“Acquire a hork-bajir,” Jake says immediately.  “While it’s all trance-ified, knock it over, grab the keys and the dracon beam, unlock the cage, and morph that particular hork-bajir.  From there you’d have a decent chance of fighting your way out.”

Ducking her head over her plate, Cassie smiles.  Probably the only person who thinks that Jake doesn’t have what it takes to teach morphing tactics to the military is Jake himself.

“So that’s the _Shawshank Redemption_ part,” Cassie says.  “What’s the _Romeo and Juliet_ part?”

“Oh, that’s where it gets worse.”  Jean sighs, pushing back from the table.  She starts stacking dishes as she talks; all of them push their chairs back and stand to help her.  “Ivan escapes, see, and of course the controllers send the yeerk inside his fiancee Rebecca to get him back...”

“Okay, that actually makes sense,” Tom points out.  He’s stacking all the utensils together onto one of the dirty plates.  “Because then he’d be less willing to shoot her.”

“True, but sending _only one_ human-controller?” Steve asks. 

Tom slides a careful hand under the plate to keep the forks from falling off. “Yeah, that’s stupid.”

“Unfortunately, where it flies completely off the rails,” Jean says, “is when Rebecca sees Ivan and she’s so overcome with love that she gets back control—”

“Of course she does.”  Steve rolls his eyes.

Jean makes a noise of exasperation.  “Right?  Anyway, she keeps control long enough for them to have a whole conversation.”

That causes everyone present to make a collective noise of disgust.

“And they expect people to believe that?” Jake asks.

Jean sighs.  “They believed the part where Emily got kidnapped by an evil scientist and dosed with a drug that turned her into a different actress, so it’s a toss-up.”

“Emily getting into morphing before anyone knew it existed didn’t spread why-didn’t-you-fight-back-itis to the general population.”  Tom speaks with the most vehemence Cassie has heard him use all evening.  He shoves the handful of utensils he’s holding onto the counter with unnecessary force.

Jean puts a hand on his arm, squeezing gently as she looks up at him.  “It _was_ somewhat xenophobic, though, you have to admit.”

Tom offers her a small smile in return.

“I know, I know, this show has flaws upon its flaws.”  Jean shakes her head.  “Anyway, after all their feelings are out, Rebecca gives Ivan the dracon beam, and then...”  She throws up her hands.

“They _Romeo and Juliet_ it up?” Tom says.

“It’s all very logistically vague, but he manages to shoot them both through the heart at the same time with the same dracon beam.”  Jean smiles faintly.  “Presumably there will be a thrilling feat of acrobatics to explain that one.”

Bonnie laughs, tilting her head in an exaggerated parody of confusion.  “I guess with enough editing, you can make anything on TV look real.  Even yeerks that don’t obey the laws of logic or reality.”  She sets a stack of empty cups on the counter next to the sink where Steve has started in on rinsing dishes.

“Cassie, Bonnie, go take a seat in the sun room.”  Steve flicks a hand toward the door.  “You’re guests.  We’ll do the washing up and come get you after.”

“Oh, no that’s fine—” Cassie starts.

“Hush.  We have too many people as it is.”  Steve smiles, repeating the shooing motion.

Bonnie pulls the back door open, acquiescing without protest.

“Okay, okay.”  Cassie follows Bonnie outside.

Bonnie settles herself on one of the mismatched chairs clustered in the middle of the sunroom, and Cassie sits down across from her.

They don’t really know each other, Cassie is reminded all over again, and as intimidating as she finds Bonnie, Bonnie probably finds her even more so.  Cassie is racking her brain for conversation topics and coming up blank.

Bonnie beats her to the punch, leaning forward to look her in the eye.  “The way they talk to each other— It’s about enough to make you jealous, isn’t it?”

Cassie blinks in surprise.  Several times.  Bonnie has just put into words the feeling that Cassie herself has been struggling to ignore all evening.

Bonnie clears her throat.  “Sorry.  That’s probably one of those statements that Tom would describe as ‘straightforward’ and my mother would describe as ‘blunt and insensitive.’  I just meant...”

“No,” Cassie blurts.  “No, I know what you meant.”

“Oh good.”  Bonnie lets out a breath, relaxing.

“Not that you’d want your family to get taken during the war,” Cassie explains.  “And I wouldn’t either.  What you mean is...”  She looks down at her hands, picking at a ragged cuticle.

“I mean, they get it.”  Bonnie glances back toward the kitchen.  “Like, really understand."

“Yeah.”  That understanding comes at a high price, but it’s also something most people don’t have.  “Yeah, exactly.”

“They don’t tell you to talk about something happy for once, or to stop bringing up the war so often.  They don’t believe that yeerk infestation is the kind of thing that you could fix with more organic produce or better education.”  Bonnie meets Cassie’s eyes.

“Or that you should move on,” Cassie says.  “Go back to normal, pick up school where you left off and go to the movies once a week while you’re at it.  Because for them, _normal_ only got interrupted for a couple months at most.”

“Yeah, that’s...”  Bonnie considers for a second and evidently decides she has nothing to add.  “That’s it, yeah.”

“They mean well,” Cassie says on reflex.

“In that case I’m sorry.”

Cassie frowns in confusion.

“I’m sorry, because that means you know what it’s like.  To find the courage to talk about the worst—the absolute most unspeakable—thing that has ever happened to you, and to have someone you love hear all that... and then disbelieve you.”  Her tone is flat, as usual, but Cassie can detect the solemnity there.

Cassie swallows.  “I do, yeah."

“You know the feeling of having someone tell you that it can’t have been that bad, that you must be misremembering it, that there’s no way you would have survived if it was really like you’re saying...”  Bonnie huffs a small laugh.  “And you don’t even have the option of pushing up your shirt sleeves far enough to show off the scars the picana left on your skin, do you?”

Unbidden, Cassie’s gaze moves to the faint row of puckered marks visible along Bonnie’s left shoulder, the rippled lines of warped skin that radiate around each center point.  She concludes that she doesn’t particularly want to know what a picana is.  “It’s true.  I heal quickly.  Completely.  All the damage undone in seconds.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Anyway—”  Cassie clears her throat.  “You were saying.”

“Just that they do it out of love, you know?”  Bonnie glances away, moistening her lips.  “And, uh, and that’s the worst part, in some regards.  They don’t want to think of you being hurt, so they deny it so hard you start to doubt yourself.  You start to wonder if you really are making parts of it up, or if it really wasn’t as bad as all that, and man...” She glances back at Cassie.  “You haven’t even got the scars to show for it.  So: I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Cassie says.  “That they—”  _That they left a mark on you_.  “That not everyone understands.”

“I moved out, not that long after the war ended.” Bonnie folds her hands in her lap as if satisfied with her own decision.  “Probably stupid of me—I had no car, no license, no job experience—but I couldn’t take my parents’ good intentions anymore.  Two months, and sayonara.”

Cassie feels something like jealousy again.

“I’m doing better now, but for a while there...”  Bonnie shrugs.  “You get it.”

“My parents tell anyone who asks that I work in wildlife rehabilitation,” Cassie admits.  It’s the kind of thing that makes her cringe even to say out loud.  They mean well, of course they do, but the implication that Toby and Arbron and all the others are _animals_ does almost as much harm as the belief that they’re no better than the yeerks.

“Fuck.”  Bonnie sighs, brushing her hair off her face in a tired motion.  “Sorry to hear that.”

Cassie smiles faintly.  It’s a relief to hear someone else say that, to acknowledge that it does suck.  “They mean well,” she repeats.  “Really, they’re doing the best they know how.”

Bonnie shrugs slightly.  “No one said they weren’t.”

And yet their best isn’t enough.  Their best sometimes feels like it’s grating the skin off Cassie’s body.  Their best sometimes leaves Cassie looking at them with something like pity in her gut, wondering if once upon a time she was ever that naïve.

Both she and Bonnie have half-turned to watch the cozy domestic scene playing out in the kitchen right now.  Bonnie’s probably noticing the same details she is: the way that Jake’s mom gently nudges Tom to get his attention, not commenting on how he was staring into space a second ago.  The fact that all three of the others casually circle Jake and dodge out of his way, careful not to bump him unexpectedly or sneak up on him from behind.  Tom says something, and both his parents turn to look directly at him to make it easier to decipher what he’s saying.  In response Jake’s dad reaches up into a cabinet, pulls out an orange prescription bottle, and tosses it underhand across the room.  Jake catches it, twists the safety cap off with his palm, dry-swallows a pill, and tosses it back.  The whole thing is so ordinary, so natural, so undeserving of comment.

“You’re mostly upstate these days, right?” Bonnie says.

Cassie clears her throat.  “I mean, that’s where the work is, and it’s not like I need a car when I can just fly anywhere I need to go, so—”  She’s babbling.  She gives up.  “Yeah, okay, getting away from my parents was part of it too.”

“They don’t understand.”  Bonnie’s voice has gone soft, pensive almost.  “How much you get out of the habit of relying on them, once you figure out you can’t.  Not when it really matters, anyway.”

Cassie wraps both her arms around herself.  Monsters came down from the sky and destroyed both their lives, took them and hurt them, and their moms and dads could do nothing to stop it.  She’s not a kid anymore, hasn’t been since that happened...

“But they don’t seem to know that that’s the case,” she says out loud.  “They still want to protect me from everything, which—”  She looks down at her hands.  “I would have given anything for, during the war.  But now?”

“Yeah,” Bonnie says.  “Now it chafes.  When it doesn’t actively piss you the hell off, that is.”

Cassie laughs, just a little.   _Blunt_ is probably the right word for Bonnie, but right now Cassie finds a dose of bluntness refreshing.

Tom slides open the door to the sun room, flopping down on the easy chair next to Bonnie.  She lifts an arm up to accommodate him and he ends up with his head resting against her shoulder.  They both have a weird, boneless way of sitting, as if letting their bodies fall into the most natural position and then remaining exactly there without moving for up to hours on end.

“Cassie, you willing to stick around for a little while if we put the Sparks game on?” he asks her.

“Uh.”  Cassie’s pretty sure that’s a team of some kind.  “Sparks?”

“Small group of tall women who throw an orange sphere through a metal ring in exchange for money,” Tom explains.

“Although, it should be noted, not nearly as much money as their male counterparts get,” Bonnie adds.

“Hear, hear,” Tom says.

WNBA, then, Cassie assumes.  “Sure,” she says.  “I’m good with that.”

Tom rolls off the edge of the cushion, loose-limbed enough that for a second Cassie’s not sure if he fell, but he pops to his feet immediately, offering a hand to Bonnie.  “Good, good.”  He gestures toward the door to the house, letting both the girls precede him inside.

In the living room, Jake’s dad has already turned the TV to the correct channel.  Cassie sits down next to where Jake is positioned on the couch, offering him a small smile of embarrassment when their legs brush together.  Tom and Bonnie once again flop together on one easy chair, tangling together—and then they freeze there, not even blinking or adjusting position.  It’s fine.  It’s totally natural, for them.  It makes a certain sense, given their history.

It’s also unbelievably creepy to watch.

Cassie feels Jake’s hand on her leg, midway through the second quarter.  She glances over at him, and he ducks his head.  Moving her own hand forward, she gently tangles their fingers together.  Then she moves their entwined hands to rest on her knee.

Jake, now staring determinedly at the television, is blushing.  Still he finds the courage to scoot himself an inch sideways, and then another inch, until their legs are pressed against each other.  Cassie makes a motion—halfway intending to pull loose just long enough to slide an arm around his waist—and ends up accidentally elbowing him in the ribs.

Jake lets out an _oof_ of more surprise than pain, jerking back.

“Sorry,” Cassie says.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

Jean looks over at them both.  “You okay?”

Well, this is mortifying.

“Fine,” Jake whispers, as if he’s trying to swallow the words.  “Fine.  Cassie just— Uh—”

“Stabbed you with my elbow?” Cassie suggests.

“It was an accident,” he says.

Jean smiles in a way that is definitely too knowing for Cassie’s comfort and turns back to the television.  Next to her, Steve has either done a version of the ex-host-freezing thing with his eyes closed, or else he is asleep.

Jake settles again, this time with a couple inches between him and Cassie.  Probably to avoid further elbows and subsequent awkwardness, but Cassie’s sad to lose the warmth of his leg.  She wonders with sudden urgency if they’re going to be expected to kiss goodnight.  If she’s going to prove to be terrible at it, once she has time to think things through in advance.  They’ve only kissed a handful of times, and in each case it happened in an impulsive rush of thank-god-we’re-alive.  What if she bites his tongue?  What if their noses bump together?  What if her breath smells bad?

More slowly, she starts to move her arm toward Jake again.  Just to let him know she still wants him there.  And because she wants to hold him, preferably forever.  She _will_ be natural about it.  She won’t overthink this.

Who’s she kidding.  She has already overthought everything.

“I can’t watch this any more,” Bonnie says suddenly.

Cassie jerks, halfway thinking that her thoughts were showing on her face—she feels painfully transparent compared to just about everyone else in the room—but realizes after that first irrational millisecond that Bonnie is looking at the television.  The San Antonio Stars are currently winning over the L.A. Sparks (a very whimsical-sounding outcome) with a score of sixty-three to four.

Tom breaks the stillness as well, sitting up.  “Let’s go drown our sorrows in ice cream.  Bring back enough for everyone.”

“I made brownies, sweetie,” Jean says.

“Perfect.”  He slides forward, careful not to shift Bonnie—who is also sitting up—when he does so.  “We’ll put both on one plate.  That good with everyone?”  He glances around the room.

Jake and Cassie both nod; Jean gives a dorky thumbs-up.  Steve lets out a small wheezing snore.

“Awrighty, we’ll be back in a sec.”  Tom drapes an arm over Bonnie’s shoulders, somehow managing to be graceful about it, and the two of them swing out of the room.

“Bonnie’s right.”  Jake’s mom suddenly leans forward and mutes the television.  “Watching this sorry excuse for defense is getting downright painful.”  She sits back, remote still in hand, and looks over at Jake.  “Those two seem to be getting serious, don’t you think?”

“Um.”  Jake goes even redder than before, glancing toward the kitchen.  Between the softness of their own conversation and the radio Cassie can hear playing in the next room, she’s pretty sure they’re not at risk of being overheard.

“Bonnie does seem nice,” Cassie offers.

“I know I approve,” Jean says.  She leans over and stage-whispers to Jake, “I approve of this one too.”  She jerks a thumb at Cassie as she speaks.

“Mom!”  Jake sits upright.

“Thank you.”  Cassie’s tone comes out almost pointedly gracious, but she doesn’t mind when it does.

“You’re welcome, dear.”  Jean smiles at her.  “And you really are.  Welcome to come by any time, that is.  Bonnie is in and out a couple times a week, and as we’ve told Tom, as long as everyone is enthusiastically informed and using protection, we’re all okay with—”

“ _Mom_ ,” Jake says through gritted teeth. 

She flaps a hand at him.  “I just want you boys to be happy.”

“I would be _happy_ if we never talked about this _again_.”  Poor Jake.  He sounds like he’s being slowly murdered by the sheer awkwardness.

“Okay,” Jean says.  “But open and honest communication is a major part of any healthy relationship, you know.”

Jake is looking at his mom, who has that knowing smile back in place.  His mouth opens and closes a few times, but no words come out.

“I’m...”  Cassie clears her throat.  “I’ll just go check on...”

She slips out, headed toward the kitchen.  Tom and Bonnie have been gone for over fifteen minutes, and she knows it doesn’t take that long to retrieve dessert.  Not unless they’ve decided to make their own ice cream on the fly, which seems doubtful.

Cassie draws up short in the door of the kitchen.  The two of them are swaying slowly in the middle of the kitchen floor, dancing in time to the soft music.  The intensity of their eye contact, the hint of smile on Tom’s face and the easy flow of Bonnie’s hips under her skirt, make it obvious they have no idea that Cassie’s there.  “I don’t know why nobody told you how to unfold your love,” George Harrison is crooning on the radio.  “I don’t know how someone controlled you, they bought and sold you...”

They’re not quite _dancing_ , or at least that’s not quite all there is to it: there’s also something in the soft way Tom’s thumb strokes gentle circles over Bonnie’s jawline, in the fractional parting of Bonnie’s lips where she tilts her face up as if she’s about to speak—or kiss.  It’s something about the gentle movement of their small steps, the curve of Bonnie’s arm cradling Tom close to her body as if he is both precious and fragile.  Cassie stays frozen there for several more seconds, unwilling to speak and break the moment.  It’s nothing at all like when her own parents belt out Aretha Franklin lyrics as they jitterbug barefoot around the living room, laughing and tripping over furniture.  It’s softer, easier...

“I look at the world and I notice it’s turning,” the radio sings, “still my guitar gently weeps.”

Cassie doesn’t know which of them spots her first, just that they both draw to a stop and turn to look at her.

“I’m sorry,” Cassie blurts.  “I didn’t mean—”

She’s not even sure why she’s apologizing.  It’s not like she caught them doing anything embarrassing or sexual; they were just dancing, and not even dirty dancing at that.  And yet it was _intimate_ , so much so that she knows perfectly well she’s intruding.

Maybe it has something to do with the way that Tom’s left hand is still cupped so gently around the back of Bonnie’s neck, curving underneath the soft fall of her hair even as she continues to hold her left wrist in her right hand behind his back, encircling him in her arms.  Or maybe it was the way they were gazing at each other so intently as they danced, leaning in like they were each other’s center of gravity and barely caring where they put their feet, in tandem without trying.  Maybe it’s the half-dazed way they’re looking at her even now, as if she woke them from a dream in which they could see and feel nothing but each other and now must work to remember that the rest of the world still exists.

Cassie clears her throat.  “I was just...”

“I look at you all,” the song continues into the silence, “see the love there that’s sleeping...”

“We were supposed to be doing something, weren’t we,” Bonnie says with a sigh.

The moment breaks, and a part of Cassie is sad to see it go.  She wonders if she and Jake will ever be that casual, that comfortable with each other.  All of Bonnie and Tom’s stiffness disappears when they’re together, their motions becoming easy and natural as if it’s the simplest thing in the world to let themselves fall together with the force of attraction.

“It’s all Bonnie’s fault,” Tom says.  “She has this uncontrollable response every time she hears Beatles music—”

“Oh, shut up.”  Bonnie leans up on tiptoe to drop a kiss on his cheek.  “They make objectively good songs and that thing where I cried over ‘Blackbird’ was a one-time incident.”

“Just don’t get her started on ‘In My Life.’”  Tom pulls away from her only reluctantly, one hand still trailing down hers as if he can stand the loss of contact only if it happens gradually.  “Right,” he says.  “Trans fats, trans fats, trans fats...”

“Never send a zombie to do a human’s job,” Bonnie advises Cassie.  “We never get anything done.”

They still look as though they were just woken up, as if until a second ago neither of them had any idea where or when they were.  Tom slides a pan of brownies out of the refrigerator, presents it to Bonnie, and then hands her a meat cleaver that seems entirely unsuited to the job of slicing them.  Rolling her eyes, Bonnie drops the cleaver back into the knife rack and grabs a more sensible steak knife instead.  Tom, meanwhile, has retrieved a half-gallon carton of vanilla ice cream from the freezer and is running a tablespoon under hot water.

Even working separately, they seem as though they are moving in tandem; even apart, they fit.  Before Cassie can even think to help they’ve formed a rapid two-person assembly line, brushing elbows and preparing plates in comfortable silence.

Of course Cassie’s probably never going to learn the art of walking in platform sandals, much less dancing in them as Bonnie was a moment ago, and if Jake was going to grow into the same causal grace that Tom possesses then he’d have done it by now.  She just wants it to be easy, she thinks as she follows them back into the living room, carrying the last two dessert plates and tiny spoons.  No, she wants it to be as easy as they make it look, and she knows that it’s not: even now that they’re just curled up in their own private foxhole facing out against the world, still trying to figure out how to live in it.

“You want me to drive you home, honey?” Jake’s mom says a while later, interrupting Cassie’s thoughts.

Cassie glances around.  Jake’s dad is definitely deep asleep by now, whereas Bonnie’s got her head on Tom’s shoulder and they’re both staring in sleepy unblinking silence at the television.  The game ended at some point without Cassie really being able to follow the verdict, giving way to what looks like a B horror movie.

Cassie sits up, shaking herself off.  She was half-asleep as well, lulled into fatigue by the incomprehensibility of the basketball scoring system.  “All right, yes, before I fall asleep.”  She gives a self-conscious little laugh.

Jake stands up with her.  “I got it,” he says.  “Don’t worry about it, Mom.”

“G’night,” Bonnie calls.  She elbows Tom, who blinks to life long enough to give Cassie a wave goodbye.

“Come back any time,” Jean says warmly.

“Yeah, uh, thank you for everything.”  Cassie smiles around the room.

Together, she and Jake step into the hall.  They stand there a second, just the two of them in the near-dark, and Cassie catches Jake’s hand in hers.  Gently she tugs him forward until their faces are inches apart.  “Seriously,” she whispers.  “Thank you.”

Jake smiles faintly.  “I know they can be a little, uh...”

As if prompted, Tom says in the next room, “Well of course you know he’s _still in there_ , did you or did you not just see him getting possessed by Satan?”  He’s clearly talking to the television; Bonnie’s responding laugh is also clearly audible.

“Yeah, and thank god he’s got his friend there to tell him to fight back,” Bonnie drawls.  “Otherwise I’m sure there’s no way he would be able to come up with that idea all on his own.”

“It’s a horror movie,” Jean answers her.  “If the characters behaved logically—by, say, running away instead of continuing to stand there and talk at the possessed guy—there wouldn’t be a plot.”

Out in the foyer, Cassie can just barely see Jake roll his eyes.  “A _lot_ weird,” he amends.

Cassie leans up and kisses him on the cheek before she can talk herself out of it, and then moves her lips to press over his mouth.  She opens her mouth just a little to suck at his bottom lip, and then shifts to find a new angle, their noses sliding against each other.

Lightheaded—she does not know how people breathe and kiss at the same time—she draws back with a gasp after too little time.  Jake is flushed but smiling.  Ducking his head, clearly at a loss for words, he fumbles the door open and walks with her out onto the front stoop.  They are still holding hands.

The door swings shut behind him with a _snap_ that causes them both to jump, and then to giggle when they realized how much they startled.

“Nice night,” Jake comments.  “Much cooler than it was earlier today.”

Cassie glances up.  “Yeah, but it’s clear, no clouds.  Only a little breeze, and it’d be tailwind on the way back toward your place.  And there’d still be a lot of residual heat trapped in the asphalt.”

“I don’t even know where my car keys are.”

“I could come back later and pick up my outer clothes.”

“It’d save on gas money.”

“And be more fun.”

Smiling, Jake yanks his shirt over his head.  Cassie bends down to pull off her shoes.  They’re both wearing morphing outfits underneath their outer clothes, because of course they are; Cassie’s pretty sure that she and Jake and even Marco are going dress like this for the rest of their lives.  If not, they have the rest of their lives to find out.

She takes a breath, and allows feathers to swoop down her arms, hands and fingers spreading outwards into full wing shape before she even begins to shrink to owl size.  It’s not efficient, but she doesn’t do it for speed.  She does it for the way he looks at her every time as if she is something miraculous and awe-inspiring, something more than a chubby teenager in leggings with no driver’s license or high school diploma.  He never seems to be aware how beautiful he is in all his strangeness, everything but his essence stripped away as pale skin gives way to gold-and-brown plumage.

They look at each other, two mostly-bird creatures like nothing the universe has ever seen, like no one but themselves, as they make the last changes.  And then they take wing, two scraps of consciousness within a shared bubble of thought-speak, somewhere between the Earth and the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel neurotically obligated to mention that Tom's method of heating a spoon before using it to scoop ice cream is (despite its popularity) actually a bad idea; although that will make ice cream easier to scoop immediately, it will also cause the surface to melt partway then refreeze harder than before and potentially even spoil.
> 
> Many thanks to [ my beta](http://plotsmiths.blogspot.com/) for helping me come up with a name for this story; I was stuck on the working title of "Antiquated Heteronormative Suburban Rituals" for several days before she saved me.


End file.
